


The Checkmate Inaugural Ball

by Griselda_Gimpel



Series: Queen & Knight [3]
Category: Checkmate (Comics 2006), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Ballroom Dancing, F/M, Fluff without Plot, Pre-New 52, Rare Pairings, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21791917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griselda_Gimpel/pseuds/Griselda_Gimpel
Summary: In which there is dancing and gossip and scheming and perhaps a bit of flirting.
Relationships: Amanda Waller/Werner Vertigo
Series: Queen & Knight [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2169015
Kudos: 1





	The Checkmate Inaugural Ball

**Author's Note:**

> There's really nothing in this fan fic that merits a PG-13 rating, but if it were a movie, it'd probably get be PG for Thematic Elements.

“There’s going to be a ball.” That was Amanda Waller (the White Queen of Checkmate) speaking to her two direct subordinates, Count Werner Vertigo (White Queen’s Knight) and King Faraday (White Queen’s Bishop). She said it the way potatoes made with imitation mayonnaise taste; mildly unpleasant, but sometimes an unavoidable fact of life.

“Why?” Faraday asked.

“I don’t own any formal wear,” Count Vertigo said.

“This iteration of Checkmate’s existed for a whole two weeks without secretly taking over the world,” Waller responded dryly. “I imagine they want to celebrate. And the Checkmate Inaugural Ball is tonight, so there’s no time to get suited. We can just wear our uniforms.” The truth was that the ball had been announced well in advanced, but Waller had been so focused on actually working that she’d plum forgotten about it until the White King had asked her if she planned to wear her uniform, as well.

~~~

Waller, Vertigo, and Faraday had arrived at the ball as a group. The event was being hosted in the South Ballroom of Checkmate Castle, and the spacious room was crawling with world leaders, diplomats, and celebrities. The twelve highest-ranked members of Checkmate were identifiable by their black or white uniforms. The other attendees were draped in suits, tuxedos, and fancy dresses. The dance floor was made of alternating black and white tiles, and Waller had not been surprised to see that it made a chess board.

She, Vertigo, and Faraday had snagged one of the small, high-top tables that surrounded the dance floor. Faraday was enjoying a Jameson, Vertigo had a Shirley Temple, and Waller was sipping a gin and tonic so slow that she wasn’t the slightest bit tipsy.

The orchestra was playing ballroom music, and some of the attendees minced across the dance floor to the latest song, although none of the Checkmate leadership had ventured out there so far. Waller watched as the dancers moved across the floor as couples in two lines. They shuffled forward holding hands, and then the foremost couple separated, moving back in the line. Waller eyed the dancers dubiously.

“What sort of slow white people dance is this?” she asked.

“It’s the minuet,” Vertigo answered. “Classic ballroom dance.”

“You know it?”

“Yes, I studied ballroom dancing as a boy,” Vertigo explained. “My classes were right before my studies in small arms combat and right after tableware etiquette. I take it that you do not dance?”

“Oh, I dance all right,” Waller assured him, “just not any of the dances they’ve been playing.” She gestured at the dance floor. “They look like jellyfish bobbing along on the ocean.”

The minuet ended, and the orchestra took up a new song. Vertigo smiled. “You might like this one better. It’s a polka. That’s a fast dance.”

“Really?” Waller’s voice was skeptical.

“Well, it’s not a tango or anything,” Vertigo said, “but it’s got a half step. You might enjoy it.” He finished his Shirley Temple in a gulp and set the empty glass on the table. Leaving his chair, he extended a hand to Waller. “Care to dance?”

“I don’t know any of the steps,” Waller said.

“I can lead,” Vertigo said. “Besides, I dare say you’ll be a quick study.”

“So be it,” Waller said. Abandoning her own drink, she took his hand, and they entered the dance floor.

“Put your hand on my shoulder,” Vertigo instructed. “My hand goes on your shoulder blade.”

“Bit of a reach,” Waller said. “You’re too tall.”

“Truly the fault lies with me,” Vertigo agreed, positioning his own hand. Their other arms were outstretched, hands clasping each other. “I’m going to hop to my left foot, step with my right, and then bring my left foot to my right foot, but slightly forward. You’re going to do the same thing, but backwards and reversed.”

In the history of impromptu dance instructions, it perhaps wasn’t the clearest explanation, but Waller really was a quick study. She made it through the first set without an issue. On the second set, however, she stumbled. Instead of taking a full step, she tried to take another half step, tripped and went backwards. Immediately, Vertigo’s grip tightened on her back and outstretched hand. She felt the strain in one arm and a lurch in her stomach. She kept on moving backward, but she did not fall. Waller glanced down and saw that her feet were a few inches off the ground, as were Vertigo’s.

“Going down, and from the top,” he whispered. They alighted back on the dance floor. “Half, half, full,” he said in time with the music.

“I think I got it now,” Waller said. “Thanks for preventing me from shining the floor with my hiney.”

“A gentleman would never leave such a fair lady in a lurch,” Vertigo assured her as they continued the dance.

Waller snorted. “I don’t know if I qualify as a lady or not, but I’m definitely not fair.”

“In the old age black was not counted fair,” Vertigo quoted, “Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name.”

A teasing look came into Waller’s eyes. “Oh, you think you can just quote the Bard and-”

“-and turn,” Vertigo said, changing the direction in which they were dancing. He smiled at her as they continued their steps, and she smiled back.

“I suppose I am the White Queen,” she remarked, “although I didn’t find that decision to be terribly fair.”

“You’re wasted in intelligence,” Vertigo agreed. “You were a glory to behold in Diabloverde.”

He turned her again, and she started the pattern over again. “Black and white are only colors, when it comes down to it,” she remarked.

“True. Maxwell Lord was merely the Black King, and he ran all of Checkmate,” Vertigo said before adding, “and that was terrible” in case anyone was listening, which at Checkmate was more likely than not.

“Very much so,” Waller said.

“But,” Vertigo said in a quieter voice, “no doubt anything Lord did, you could do, as well. Hypothetically speaking.”

“Backwards,” Waller whispered fiercely, “in high heels.”

Vertigo chuckled and turned again.

~~~

On the sidelines, Sasha Bordeaux (the Black Queen) and Michael Holt (White King’s Bishop) were not dancing with each other. They were instead observing Waller and Vertigo’s polka, mouths slightly agape.

“She’s screwing him,” Bordeaux said finally. “They’re screwing.”

“I do believe they are,” Holt said.

“Oh yes,” said a voice from behind them, and they turned to see that Faraday had ambled up to their table. “Every day and twice on Sundays. They’re having unethical relations and are flaunting it before all of Checkmate. Because when I think Amanda Waller, I think ‘careless’ and ‘stupid’.” Faraday rolled his eyes.

“Fine, they’re not screwing,” Holt admitted.

“But he’d be down for it,” Bordeaux insisted. She nodded toward the dance floor. The song had ended, and Vertigo was escorting Waller back to their table.

“I would think,” Faraday intoned, “that such gossip would be beneath the Black Queen.”

Turning from them, he weaved his way through the crowds in the direction of his table. Once he was out of earshot, Holt leaned forward and whispered, “He’d totally be down for it.” 

**Author's Note:**

> The poetry that Vertigo quotes is the opening lines of Sonnet 127.


End file.
